Fotografo non identificato, stampe all’albumina

The Museum will virtually bring to your homes a selection of photographs coming from our archive. Every week you will discover new images.

Mug shots of Egyptian prisoners, second half of the 19th century.

Unidentified photographer, albumen prints on cardboard
This image belongs to a group of mug shots of Egyptian detainees holding signs that read Kene or Touran, two locations in Egypt.
Lombroso published in the 1894’s Archivio di Psichiatria, the journal of Criminal Anthropology, an article entitled Il tipo Criminale nei rei selvaggi (the criminal type in convicts and savages) with a printed table showing some of these faces. In the text, he also mentions the donor of the photographs, the Egyptian Kantel Bey.
Lombroso’s interest in crime in non-European countries is intertwined with his racist beliefs on the relationship between evolutionary delay and criminal tendencies.